Month: April 2008

Here is the part of the website where I try to entertain you by making up a story and trying to convince you it’s absolutely true. Well, I will place two true “truthiness nuggets” in the story, and your job will be to try to determine which those are.

I was eating lunch at Johnny Rockets at the Burlington Mall when I realized I’d left my wallet in the car. This was not cool because, well, Mrs. Rocket was staring at me with a bill in her hand and I couldn’t very well tell her that I did not have any money. I scanned the restaurant to see if I knew anybody, and was shocked and amazed to see Mike Lowell eating a #12 with his family. It turns out Mike is a big fan of the “red red sauce” that they put on the #12, and he often eats there four or five times a week. Now me, if I was a big famous sports star, I would ask if they could hook me up with a bottle of the stuff, but maybe he just enjoys spending quality time at the mall. You never know.
But you thought I was going to ask Mike if he could cover my bill for me, right? Wrong. I could not do that. But what I could do is ask Mike if he was interested in buying my watch from me. It’s a Timex Ironman Triathlon watch with Indiglo, so you can tell what time it is in the dark. I told him I’d sell it to him for $19.65, which covered my bill plus a hearty 10% tip. (Only 10% because Mrs. Rockets forgot to bring me my fries and she forced me to do the ketchup all by myself instead of doing the first pour for me. Beeatch.
Mike inspected the watch for wear and tear and told me he’d give me a full twenty for it, which was fantastic. I didn’t want to give Mrs. Rockets the extra 35 cents, but I felt it would be awkward to ask her for it. But then, Mike Lowell paid for the watch using giant handfuls of change. I’m not even sure how he got all that change into his pockets. He may have been carrying it in some sort of man bag. And you should totally not make fun of him for carrying a man bag because on him it would look very very cool, unless it had some kind of Hello Kitty design on it. I’m not saying he’s partial to Hello Kitty, but really, could you blame the man? It’s so damned cute!
So I handed Mrs. Rockets the twenty, and thanked her for a lovely meal. On the way out of the restaurant I noticed they had a giant gumball machine. I love gumballs, and couldn’t believe I’d just tossed away that extra thirty five cents. All I needed for a gumball was twenty five cents, you see. So I made eye contact with Mike Lowell again and nodded toward the gumball machine. He got up from his table and came over to me, and used his manly baseball muscles to push over the huge gumball machine like it was so many Q-Tips. The ball on top shattered, and hundreds of gumballs flooded the entryway to Johnny Rockets. I gave Mike Lowell and thankful nod and as I grabbed a handful of gumballs, careful to avoid the ones with glass in them, I whispered “until next time.”